Trouble #24 - Organize: For Autonomy & Mutual Aid

Modern industrial civilization is an astonishing
testament to the power and capacity of organization.

The world that we inhabit today is the product
of countless generations of planning, innovation

and collective human activity, harnessed and
channelled towards the ceaseless pursuit of

productivity and growth.

Every day, the global economy structures and
coordinates the labour of billions of people.

A dizzying array of commodities are engineered,
manufactured, transported to regional distribution

centres and shipped out to retail outlets
and people’s doorsteps all around the world.

International supply chains cut across borders
and continents, connecting garment workers

in Ho Chi Min City, Vietnam to Wal-Mart shoppers
in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Within this interconnected system, each metropolis forms a teeming hub of activity made up of dozens of

neighborhoods. These distinct regions are linked together by an intricately designed maze of

transportation and telecommunication

infrastructure, as well as the electrical,
water and sewage grids that help ensure the

sanitation and daily survival of millions
of people.

And yet despite all the meticulous planning
and the vast quantities of human skill and

toil marshalled towards its execution, more
than a billion people live in squalid, overcrowded

slums, favelas and makeshift refugee camps
– many of which lack basic access to electricity

or running water. This growing population
draws little benefit from the way society is organized.

And this is by design as their impoverishment and desperation is integral to the machine's

smooth functioning.To the architects of progress, they are the grease that keeps the gears moving.

The same could be said, to varying degrees,
for the entirety of the global working class,

particularly migrant labourers and all those
working in the informal, low-wage sectors

of the so-called “gig economy”. Because
this world is not organized around the principle

of satisfying people’s needs, but around
the endless accumulation of capital.

This organizational imperative is firmly rooted
in ruling-class institutions and in the ideologies

and structural violence that underpin them.
This dynamic means that sweeping social transformations

are contingent on political crises that can
shake and ultimately uproot the entire social

order. Yet even when this sort of revolutionary
change may seem far off, it’s always possible

to change our conditions for the better. This
is where autonomous, grass-roots organizing comes in.

Over the next thirty minutes, we’ll take
a closer look at what this sort of organizing

looks like for anarchists. Along the way,
we’ll talk to a number of individuals as

they share their own experiences of bringing
people together, coming up with strategies,

hitting the streets... and making a whole
lot of trouble.

When we're talking about organzing, we're
essentially talking about weaponizing human

relatonships. The relationships that you and I
and people in our broader community that are

affected by things, that live together, that
work together, that go to school together..

Weaponizing those relationships, and then
using those relationships to go out and do

something and figuring out how people can
physically put themselves together as material force.

With that in mind, it's important to understand

that this takes time, it takes a lot of trust,
a lot of love, a lot of passion. It takes

time for folks to kind of come together and
to start pinpointing what are the issues,

what are the struggles here within my neighborhood,
within my community?

Organizing is, it's a process of building

up your collective strength and your collective power

The first step of organizing is to sort of

break through that social barrier and isolation
that divides us and often this can be as simple

as getting a bunch of people into a room together
and starting to talk about the things that

we have in common, the problems that we share,
and from there through the course of talking

about these things we start to come to the
realization that by working together we're

in a better position to change things. Organizing
is a process that should be transformative.

During the process of organizing
new bonds of solidarity are formed through

the course of struggle.

I think the first thing is to
find a group of people,

a community,

or people in your area

that have a conflict in common.

And based on that conflict,

to agree to organize among
these people to achieve an objective.

Organizing is more of an approach to engaging in struggle

People talk about organizing and being an organizer more related to building relationships with

people and focusing on specific groups of people, it could be tenants or students or workers.

But in this case the central focus is more on building those relationships

Rather than just on one singular issue and often working to like build power with those people

"After every anarchist attack, a wordy communique - Anarchist graffiti - A Greek anarchist group has attacked

- an anarchist group - anarchist community - these are anarchists!"

I think there are a variety of different characteristics that differentiate anarchist organizing from other

types of organizing. I think some
of them entail the scope of the type of organizing

anarchists engage in. I think by default of
being an increadibly diverse politics that has

a critique of domination and systems of power
that is so total, means that anarchists focus

on a very broad range of different issues
and organize amongst many different people.

What distinguishes anarchist organizing primarily
is the goals of that organizing. So, it's

the type of world that anarchists are trying
to bring about. Anarchists oppose states and

capitalism and all forms of illegitimate authority.
So, the process of anarchist organizing is

one that builds opposition to the insitutions,
groups and individuals that reproduce these

forms of hierarchy in society.

Anarchists engage in a really wide spectrum

of different types of activities. From things
that are illegal to things that are very legal,

things that are very like non-violent to sometimes
things that could potentially be violent.

Constructive, destructive, that sort of thing.
I think, part of what makes anarchism unique

is there's no assumption that legality equals
morality.

Any party based organization

from the most left-leaning
to the furthest right-wing

utilizes a hierarchical structure
in its form of organizing.

They also form part of
the political circus,

the spectacle.

There's just a lot of people that are fed
up with politics as usual. They're fed up

with the economic system that really just
is ringing them out to dry. They're fed up

with elections.

In the face of capitalist catastrophe,
in the face of the capitalist devastation,

it is necessary to have this energy.

There are those of us who can't

- there are many people who can't
stay calm and continue life

in this "normality"

when it is evident that
they are exterminating our future.

In popular discourse, the word anarchy is
commonly used to describe the absence of organization.

It’s the spectre of chaos that fills the
vacuum formed by a sudden breakdown of order.

A violent free-for-all, where the strong take
advantage of the absence of rules to prey

upon the weak. This vision of anarchy has
long been a useful projection for the ruling

classes, and every paranoid authoritarian
unwilling to distinguish between order and

submission. But it’s a far cry from what
anarchists actually believe in, and the world

that we’re fighting for.

The reality is that anarchists take many different
approaches and hold a multiplicity of views

when it comes to the role of organization
and its relationship to struggle. This lack

of orthodoxy has historically set anarchism
apart from other revolutionary traditions,

such as Marxist-Leninism, whose multiple competing
schools of thought generally agree on the

need for a centrally-organized party... just
disagree about who should lead it.

For more than 150 years, anarchists have experimented
with a wide range of different organizational

forms – from syndicalist trade unions with
over a million dues-paying members, to informal

networks of small affinity groups; from federations,
committees and assemblies, to tightly knit

cells and loosely-structured associations
of autonomous individuals. This process of

experimentation continues to this day.

One of the beautiful things about Anarchism
is that there's not one set blueprint. It's

a tension and it's striving towards freedom.

Anarchists hold a lot of different views on

organization and the role that organizations
play in struggle. I think this relates to

different positions people hold and things
around thinking things happen more spontaneously

to folks who want a higher level of coordination.

The main split within anarchism over this

question is between individualist anarchists
or egoists and collectivists. Individualist

anarchists oppose most forms of organization,
their focus is on building up the autonomy

of the individual. and they basically see
organizations as a hinderance on individual

autonomy. And then collectivists basically
believe in organizing collectively and organizations

are often a big component of that.

This also goes hand in hand with different

opinions on the basis of how people are organizing
and interacting with each other with some

anarchists being in favor of more formal organizing
and organizations that sort of have a clear

and defined membership usually specific sort
of bylaws or different things that like govern

them. Other anarchists can be quite critical
of organizations and prefer more informal

organizing methods sometimes this can entail
still having organizations or groups but having

them form for only one specific purpose or
one specific type of activity then having

them dissolve.

There are obviously pluses and minuses with

both formal, so for instance federations or
labor unions and informal things like affinity

groups and cells and stuff like that. But
I think that there are also really key questions

for anarchists in the 21st century, how we
interact with the public and how people come

into anarchism beyond this supposed dynamic
of formal vs informal.

There are different positions.

So from more anti-social tendencies,

more insurrectionary,

there isn't really much of
a call or direct invitation

for people to join up or
to start believing in anarchist ideas.

More than being convinced,

those groups have participants
because of their own ideas and feelings.

But there are comrades
whose political work is more social,

more based in people-power,
who believe in organizing from below

and neighborhood organizing.

During the insurrectionary period in the United
States from like 2008 and 2009 on, a lot of

us kind of glommed on to this idea that quality
is better than quantity, which I would fundamentally

agree with, but at the same time, we need
to find a way to actually meet people where

they're at, engage them and bring them into
our projects and our movements so we actually

can grow. You know in the past couple decades,
people were coming into anarchism through

things like punk rock or other subcultures
or from different movements such as like animal

rights and things like that. And in the post
anti-globalization era, anarchists have also

- at least in the United States, have really
depended on kind of new cycles of struggle

to bring people in. So there's the anti-war
movement, you get a new generation of anarchists,

there's "Occupy" there's the Ferguson rebellion,
you get a new generation coming in. We can't

always depend on something popping off and
then benefiting from that wave of new people.

I think here in Chile,
we've had a chance to experience

a broad range of anarchist and
anti-authoritarian practices and tactics.

Between territorial assemblies,
between affinity groups,

between liberated spaces and squats,

between labor unions,
between independant workers,

among professionals
and among people who live on the streets.

Anarchism happens in subtle ways all the time.
And we may not think of it that way because

like it's not the concept that we're used
to thinking, but it's still anarchism. When

people think of anarchism they have this Eurocentric
idea of what it is, the word itself, it hasn't

been around for that long but if you go by
the textbook definition of what anarchism

is, indigenous people have been practicing
anarchism and mutual aid for fuckin thousands

of years.

In these territories we are fortunate that
many, many of us have Mapuche ancestry.

We also have that duality,

or that ability to position
ourselves politically like this.

From the point of view of anarchists

- but at the same time not forgetting
that we have our own history.

That we have our own individuality.

That we are from this territory.

That we come from a colonized territory.

That our history and our practices
and our visions of anarchism

aren't going to be 100% the same
as the anarchist comrades

from Palestine,
Rojava, or Europe,

or from other parts of Latin America.

You know when people are faced with really
horrible things in their everyday life, whether

it's eviction, watching people be deported,
stuff that's happening on their job, a pipeline

going through their land... We really want
to have people know that there's a community

of people in revolt that they can turn to,
that they can then organize with to fight

back and to really hurt their enemies to the
point at least where they're not able to do

what they're trying to do.

A good organizer has many tools in their toolbox.
The trick is to know which tool to use when,

and to replace them when they stop working.
This applies just as much to anarchists as

it does any other type of organizer. The main
difference is what we’re trying to build.

Anarchism is based on the principle of self-organization.
This is directly connected to the type of

world that anarchists seek to create. A world
in which people can come

to collective decisions and take action autonomously,
without waiting for orders or permission from above.

Anarchist organizing begins with the fostering
of self-directed struggle. It involves agitating

and encouraging people to to take action directly
to solve their problems. Without appealing to those

higher up the social ladder. From this starting

point, there are many different paths that
you can take. Wherever you decide to go, the

most important step is your first.

Strategy and tactics are intimately connected,
yet separate things.

You start off with a specific goal or a vision.
Something that you want to accomplish, or

achieve, or want to challenge. And then your
strategy is your plan of how you want to achieve

that goal. And then the tactics would be all
the specific actions, activities and approaches

that would sort of come together to help you
in meeting that goal.

The strategy that you choose will determine
the type of activity that you engage in. When

your tactics are successful, or if they repeatedly
fail, go back and make adjustments to your

strategy. Once you’ve made those adjustments
to your strategy, you will then try to come

up with different tactics.

These things have to reinforce each other,
and we have to also constantly be evaluating

back and forth.

You have to just do it. You gotta do it. You
gotta kind of be there on the front lines,

putting in that work.

On the one hand, we visualize,
theorize, develop our politics,

basically thinking on what it is we want
- what we're seeking.

On the other hand,
we start taking action

and we see how specifically
we can make those ideas real.

We're all individuals.
But everyone has their role.

In Chile we're lucky,

somewhat ironically,

that we have a history full of conflict.

A history of political persecution

and of riots.

So conflicts and objectives
have always been present.

The strategies and tactics
that have been used in general

have been pretty broad.

The tactics that are winning these days
can be inspired by other struggles.

For example the tactics
inspired by the conflict in Hong Kong.

The idea of using lasers

and of using water jugs
to put out tear gas cannisters.

These are internationally used
resistance and street fighting practices.

Then there's blocking the street.

There are barricades
- different kinds too.

There's barricades of fire,
or barricades of stones.

There are comrades who rescue
and help those who are injured.

The world that we live in, how we engage with
things, even how we come to think about things

is going to necessarily be influenced by the
material conditions that we exist in.

The kind of classic Marxist quote: “People change
history, but not in the conditions of their

own choosing.” That it is these conditions,
these material realities, that impact not

only people’s lives, but also their consciousness.
And that you can’t just think your way outside

of those things–or that there is no outside
of it.

Capitalism is constantly changing the face
of work, of social life, of the way people

are alienated from each other. So we need
to be constantly kind of reevaluating, y’know...

‘what is life like?’ And what are the
possibilities for revolt against the kind

of lives that we’re forced to lead?

How can we really get to the nitty gritty
of, like, alright... what’s going on here?

How are we gonna fix it?

People change the world around them through
their actions. And so we can have an effect

on our material conditions, and we can change
them—through struggle. The flip-side to

that is that the state can change conditions
in order to remove the fuel for struggles.

I think it’s important to understand how
power is organized, and the specifics of how

it operates.

The kind of world that we want doesn’t exist
yet. It can only be built on the ashes of

this one. But at the same time, we’re trying
to create new ways of relating to each other.

New ways of solving problems, new ways of
engaging in action, new ways of carrying out

things like work that look towards the possibilities
of new forms of life that don’t exist yet.

If you want a future society that is free
form hierarchy and domination, if you want

a future society where people have autonomy
and are treated equally, how you’re engaging

today has to reflect these values.

Sometimes we kinda have to take these chances
and these risks, and try these alternative

ways of doing things.

Follow conflicts around the world
that can also serve as inspiration.

So that we can have new experiences.
New ways of attacking.

New forms of resistance
within the territories in conflict.

To the extent possible, revolutionary movements
should be creating a counter-society and removing

themselves from state and capitalist institutions
as much as possible.

Basically what we can do is orient our efforts
towards building competing centres of legitimacy

that are communal. That exist in opposition
to the state, to the police and to capital.

We wanna prefigure the world that we wanna
see and the relationships that we’re building.

Both in terms either of, y’know, building
some sort of dual power or autonomous power

from the ground-up to meet our everyday needs,
but also in terms of the struggles that we’re

engaging in. You know, those relationships
should prefigure a different kind of mode

of life. And also, y’know, bring people
into new ways of engaging with each other,

new ways of talking, new ways of solving problems.
Insurrection and dual power of course need

each other. As the saying goes, ‘the force
of insurrection is social, not military.’

And to create a social force requires, y’know,
real infrastructure and space that we can

call our own. And the ability to use that
space in order to fight back.

On December 1st, 2019, a 55 year old resident
of Hubei province walked into a hospital in

Wuhan with an apparent case of pneumonia.
This was the first documented instance of

COVID-19, a novel strain of Corona Virus that
has since swept across the globe and turned

daily life upside-down for billions of people.

At the time these words are being written,

we appear to be at the precipice of a mass
social and economic breakdown on a scale not

seen in the past century. If nothing else,
this pandemic has exposed the myth of capitalism’s

infallibility and laid its weaknesses bare.
It has also demonstrated the need to be able

to quickly adapt our strategies and tactics
to confront rapidly changing realities. Slowly

at first, and then all of a sudden, our mobility
and ability to associate have been curtailed,

and time-honoured tactics such as rallies,
marches, door-knocking and even handing out

flyers have been taken away.

But as the saying goes, necessity is the mother
of invention. In times of social and political

upheaval, hold fast to your principles. Rid
yourself of dogmatism. Keep your eyes on the

prize. And brace yourself to meet whatever
challenges come your way.

Anarchism is a beautiful, amazing thing and
has done a lot of great things historically.

Also, it's often something that fails. And,
I think failure is okay, and there is often

a lot of value in things that I’ve come
to take away even in times there has been

big failures or struggles. Saying you’re
anarchist, and you’re getting involved in

anarchist organizing and struggle, whatever
that looks like, you are declaring yourself

to be very openly against many of the things
that currently exist, like the state, the

police and capitalism. And, you should just
realize from the beginning that that sometimes

has consequences.

Take yourself seriously. Once you declare
yourself an enemy of the state, the state

will take that very seriously as a threat.
Jail sucks and once you have a criminal record

it makes things more difficult for you in
the future, so you should take adequate steps

to try to protect yourself and avoid unnecessary
arrests.

What are the major things going around that
you could actually impact with people that

you're close to, that you have a relationship
with. And whether that’s at your workplace

or that’s at your school, whether that’s
in the neighbourhood, you know something going

with the police, something going on with massive
amounts of gentrification, whether there’s

a resource extraction project happening on
the land base that you’re on. From that

understanding that analysis, then going about
how would you begin to organize and bring

people together and begin to act and begin
to engage in such a way that begins to push

back that, you know, puts your own interest
forward and starts to attack those of the

dominant class.

The Police

The Judges

The State

The President

The oppressive state is the rapist

The rapist is you

Certain groups want to assert their power
and ownership over you, and over your body,

what you have to say. This is not about ownership,
this is not about who owns the revolution,

or who owns the struggle, like were all in
this shit together. And if somebody is not

willing to struggle it out, like let’s say
you’re calling them out on patriarchy or

whatever the fuck it is, if they’re not
willing to struggle it out with you than that

shows that obviously that individual or that
entity or whatever… like, they don’t give

a fuck. If people are truly invested in the
struggle than when shit comes about you’re

going to be able to struggle it out. Even
if it takes time, even if you have to stop

organizing for a bit until you work shit out.

I would invite fellow anarchist comrades

to realize that we have the potential
to organize ourselves,

to hold positions and politics
that are intersectional

with people who may not
necessarily be anarchists.

To those who embrace
anti-speciesist ideas.

To those who embrace
anti-patriarchal ideas.

To those who embrace
ideas and spirituality.

To those who rescue some of the ancestry
lost to these centuries of colonization

that European, western, white
hetero-patriarchy has imposed on us

- has snatched.

You’re saying you’re against all these
things, and you’re going to be fighting

against all these things. Obviously, sometimes,
there’s pushback, and there’s difficulties

and stuff in your life that you’re going
to have to push through.

After you do an action, you know, take some
time with your comrades and sit down and reflect

critically on what you did well, and what
you could have done better. And then, try

to incorporate the lessons you’ve learned
through your own experiences into your future

organizing.

And we really got to think about, like, “okay,
when we do this, how do we actually win?

Like, we wanna actually be able to do damage against
people that are hurting us, we wanna be able

hit back in such a way that expands our influence,
our confidence, you know, the spaces that

we hold. We need to actually find ways of
intersecting with people that are interested

and then bringing them on board, involve them
in struggle, and have them be forced to pick

a side that literally supports illegal, anti-capitalist
modes of action, and gets people thinking

about the possibilities of what they could
do if there was a movement behind them to

better their own lives and conditions.

We live in a time when despair comes easily.
A steady flow of bad news keeps us constantly

on edge. Massive fires ravage Australia for
months on end. Police departments outfit their

body cameras with AI-driven facial recognition
software. A family in Idlib freezes to death

after their makeshift refugee camp is bombed.
Emergency ordinances outlaw all public gatherings

of three or more people. Confronted with all
this, there’s no shortage of reasons why

any rational person might feel viscerally
discouraged and utterly depressed. And that

is especially true for revolutionaries who
consistently find our hopeful idealism swallowed

up by feelings of bitter resignation and defeat.

But when this despair comes, it is important
to remember that we are not alone. That there

are many other people who share our sense
of grief, anxiety... and most importantly,

outrage. That we are part of a long and proud
lineage of struggle. And that victories are

still possible. Armed with this knowledge,
and conscious of our own capabilities, opportunities

and limitations, we can turn our attention
back to the task at hand, which is, as always,

to build our collective power, and increase
our shared capacity to resist.

So at this point, we’d like to remind you
that Trouble is intended to be to be used

as a resource to promote discussion and collective
organizing. Are you interested in stepping

up your organizing game? Looking to launch
a new initiative, but not quite sure where

to begin? Consider connecting with some comrades,
organizing an online viewing party of this

film, and discussing where to get started.

Interested in running regular screenings of
Trouble at your campus, infoshop, community

centre, or even just at home with friends?
Well don’t! We appreciate the support, but

that’s probably not a great idea right now.
Instead, why not set up a discussion group

with some friends, each watch the episode
on your own screens at home, and then go through

the online screening kit on our website for
links to additional resources, and some questions

to help frame your conversation.

Also just a reminder that here at subMedia,
we depend entirely on donations from our viewers

to keep things going... so if you’re able
to pitch in to help support us, please do

so at sub.media/donate. If you can’t afford
to support us financially, no worries! You

can stream and/or download all our content
for free off our website: sub.media/trouble.

This episode would not have been possible
without the generous support of Josh, Murph,

Sam, Tal, La Conxa, and the good folks at
IGD.

Lastly, we’re sad to announce that this
will be the last episode of Trouble for the

foreseeable future. It’s been an awesome
run, but the subMedia crew has decided that

it’s time to move onto new projects. And
to make that possible, we’ve decided to

pull the plug on Trouble. Given that we can’t
meet up in person for the foreseeable future,

it seems like the perfect time to make this
change. We want to assure all you Troublemakers

out there that we have some exciting new plans
in the works that we think you’re going

to love... so stay tuned! And to everyone
who has organized screenings, sent us ideas

for show topics, constructive criticism or
positive feedback about the show... thank

you from the bottom of our hearts! Your support
has been truly humbling, and we hope that

the 24 episodes that we’ve cranked out will
continue to serve as useful organizing tools

for years to come.

Now get out there…. and make some trouble!